


Sow//Reap

by theparanoidandroid



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing, ジョジョの奇妙な冒険 | JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken | JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Violence, Crack Treated Seriously, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Feat Selective Canon Compliance, Found Family of Two, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Kira Yoshikage (JoJo: Diamond is Unbreakable)'s Hand Fetish, Living With A Serial Killer, Miyadera Sucks And Dies For It, Morioh (JoJo), Parental Kira Yoshikage, Serial Killers, Shinguji Korekiyo Gets A Stand, Shinguji Korekiyo's Sister Being an Asshole, Stands (JoJo), Unconventional Families, among the stranger things i've written, look upon what you've done and reflect, no regrets, yall mfs called him daddy too many times and he took you seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:14:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27885085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theparanoidandroid/pseuds/theparanoidandroid
Summary: Kira's latest victim has a very strange little brother. Subsequently, he unwillingly becomes a single father— unless you'd count severed hands as partners.
Relationships: Shinguji Korekiyo & Kira Yoshikage
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14





	Sow//Reap

**Author's Note:**

> this has been in my drafts since last march and i found it again and decided i liked it enough to finish it so... here. take it. you have no say in this.
> 
> i guess this is my first crossover fic? i'm pretty proud of it! don't let the summary fool you— this is not a lighthearted fic. tread lightly and keep yourself safe <3

The summers are humid in Morioh. Far too warm for Korekiyo’s usual selection of long pants and bulky sweaters, though he never does bother with shorts or t-shirts. Even the rain packs a heated punch, spilling in sheets down his bedroom window, moving with such ferocity that it rattles the glass panes in their sill. When the thunderstorms are over, the humidity still chokes Korekiyo, the hot and heavy air invading his bedroom — which has always been without an air conditioning unit by his own preferences — like a cancer. 

Though Korekiyo Shinguji will, even as a boy of a measly eleven years, forever condemn air conditioning units, he keeps an electric fan in his room for summers such as these.

The only air conditioning unit in the entire house belongs in his beloved elder sister’s room, installed on the wall by her great queen-size bed. As such, the only thermostat is also in her room, on the opposite side of the bed and just within her reach should she grow too warm or too chilly— though she does ask Kiyo to change it for her when he visits her in her bedroom, which is two floors beneath his and just beyond a small foyer.

Each day Korekiyo updates his sister on all of Morioh’s various goings-on, all of which she has missed for more years than Kiyo can count, confined to her bed by the chains of her illness. Each day she implores him to pick a book and he of course obliges her, sometimes reading for hours on end, surpassing dinnertime and his own, self-set curfew simply because she asks him to. Knowledge is its own reward, she says, and so knowledge he will give her.

By Korekiyo’s twelfth birthday, though, things have changed. The gaze with which his dearest sister looks upon him now has a new sort of fondness, and deep inside it is the longing she, and her bedridden self, has repressed for so long. Before long Korekiyo has lost the comfort of his long pants and bulky sweaters and succumbed to a kind of exposure he does not think twice about. Or does, though his sister’s demands are fierce and rife with longing, and Korekiyo does not dare deprive his poor, sickly sister of that which she desires. 

This selfless, thoughtless devotion and the sheer fervor with which she so greedily accepts it, his sister tells him, is a love that transcends all ideas of _else._

When she asks him if he doubts her, he denies it, heart and body ablaze with his assurity of it.

Things change again when, once again, summertime in Morioh rolls back around, bringing with it the usual dreadful humidity and rainy weather. A knock on their door one day (surely misplaced, no one ever visits Korekiyo and his dear sister) has Kiyo tumbling down the stairs to answer. 

When he opens the door, before him stands a tall man, well-dressed and wearing the pleasant but closely guarded expression of a door-to-door salesman. He smiles at Korekiyo, dark eyes glittering like jewels, and invites himself in. He asks for the company of an adult, and hesitantly Korekiyo directs him to his sister’s room, where he himself sits and watches the strange salesman and his beloved sister interact. Eventually, the salesman leaves, without having made a single sale. Korekiyo watches him go, and then returns to his sister’s arms, taking her smile for something very different.

Over the duration of the following weeks, the salesman returns three times. Each time, Korekiyo is dismissed from his sister’s room to wait anxiously in his own, contemplating the nature of the conversations afoot two floors below. He battles the roots of jealousy flourishing within him, struggles to reconcile himself to the thought of his sister having company other than himself. The hours he spends on his own are searing agony as he deliberates deeply on the truth of the _love_ his dear sister so often proclaims to him.

When the salesman leaves, as he always does, however, so do Korekiyo’s troubles. His beloved sister always beckons him again, and he goes to her, suppressing forcefully the memories of hours spent contemplating her genuineness and instead delighting in her company, in her praises, in her love.

The salesman visits a fourth time, though, and this fourth visit is what changes everything.

This time the salesman knocks on the door at roughly six o’clock in the evening, bearing dinner and a bottle of wine, and reluctantly Korekiyo joins him at the front door, allowing him inside with a tight smile. 

“Good evening, Korekiyo-kun,” The salesman’s voice is as pleasant as his smile, smooth and calming. He ducks inside, blond head nearly brushing the top of the doorframe. “Have you been doing well in school?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How nice. I’m sure your sister is very proud of you.”

“Thank you, sir.” Each word is rehearsed. This is the formality Kiyo experiences each time he speaks to an adult, whether it be the postman or his sister’s doctors.

The salesman smiles again and says, “I am a guest in your home, Korekiyo-kun. Call me Kira.”

Korekiyo frowns. That’s never happened before. Who does he think he is? “That’s hardly polite. Might I at least call you Kira-san?”

Like most men of his field, Kira laughs easily. Nothing he does ever seems disingenuous, no matter how closely Korekiyo scrutinizes him. “If that is what helps you sleep at night, then by all means.” He manages a nod to the many paper bags he bears in his arms and asks, “Would you mind helping me with this, Korekiyo-kun?”

Again with some reluctance, Korekiyo obeys and helps the salesman arrange the food he brought along for his sister and himself, and with even more reluctance waves goodbye to the salesman as he disappears into Kiyo’s sister’s room with two plates, two glasses, and the bottle of wine he brought along.

For a long moment after he is gone, Korekiyo stands in the kitchen, despairing in his sudden loneliness and his hatred of the salesman’s genuine, unconditional kindness. He hates the way Kira holds himself, hates that he’s here, in his home, with his sister, and he hates that he’s so _impressed_ by him.

Balancing his plate and his cup in his arms, Korekiyo leaves to his room to sulk.

Korekiyo’s own bedroom, by his own preference, is the barest one in the house. The walls, which are no striking color in particular, are decorated sparsely, with the exception being a small handful of odd artifacts left behind by long-gone parental figures. His bed is twin-sized with a wooden frame, neighbored by a lamp sitting on a shaky night table. The floor is littered with books and colorful pens and markers. The most expensive things he owns are the electric fan plugged into the wall near the bed, and the stereo, old and dusty and unused.

Korekiyo has taken to hating clutter and excessive decor. Should he even have the means to take a non-minimalist approach, he would decline.

The food Kira so kindly brought for Korekiyo and his sister is, to Kiyo’s utmost disgust, delicious. Utterly distraught, he lavishes his plate and drinks every drop of his juice, and resolves to spending the rest of his evening brooding over a book and fuming over every one of his sister’s laughs, boisterous and bold, that manage to reach him on the top floor of the house. For the most part, though, everything is peaceful, and Kiyo is able to tune out the voices from downstairs and instead focus on the book in his lap, which is not quite meant for a child of twelve years but still fascinating from what Korekiyo can decipher.

His peace is undisturbed for a long while, until it isn’t, when Korekiyo comes to the vague realization that the house is shaking. 

It doesn’t last long — no longer than a very brief earthquake, as far as Korekiyo can tell — but the sound of his sister’s scream has him on his feet and running to her aid without a second thought. He trips over his own feet, catching himself on the banister as he reaches the first floor and careens around the corner. 

The door to his sister’s bedroom has been blown off its hinges. Horrified, Korekiyo approaches quickly, feeling along the wall for support, his house shoes crunching on the broken glass of what _was_ the overhead lights. Only one or two remaining bulbs light his path as he reaches the gaping doorway, and looks hurriedly inside.

“Kira-san—” Korekiyo halts, heart pounding.

There is no sign of her. No blood, no scrap of clothing, no corpse at all. The wall behind the bed is absurdly blackened, drywall crumbling through the cracks in its surface. The bedsheets and comforter are in tatters, and the hospital equipment by Kiyo’s dear sister’s bed is all on its side. The floorboards beneath him have mostly been torn up, having suffered from what Korekiyo is positive was an explosion. But the _source…_

The only sign that Korekiyo’s beloved sister ever lived and breathed at all is in the hand of the salesman, who stands before the wreckage of the bed, breathing heavily. His suit, still its stylish purple, looks astonishingly unharmed. Korekiyo is rooted to the spot, terror and anger and utter despair creeping into every muscle in his body.

Blood drips from the end of his sister’s severed hand, as red as her nails, her dead fingers interlocked with the salesman’s. It seems as though he has not noticed Korekiyo’s presence, or is unbothered by it. Bits of shrapnel lay scattered around the man’s feet, even poking him through his suit in some places, though to this he does not react.

No words lay on the tip of Korekiyo’s tongue as he stares in horror at the scene before him. No tears well up in his eyes, no screams are wrenched from his throat. Silence is perfectly suited for the unexplainable, and this Kiyo can not explain, though he knows, somewhere, deep within him, that his dear, beloved sister has just been murdered by their guest.

_But how?_

Yoshikage Kira looks up from what remains of Korekiyo’s late sister, the pupils of his glittering eyes blown wide. There is no remorse in his expression now, no empathy— but there is curiosity, in the slight raise of one eyebrow and the subtle tilt of his twitching lips.

“Are you going to scream, Korekiyo-kun?” Kira says. Though he can only feel and not yet see it, the sharp, feline eyes of Killer Queen pierce through Korekiyo’s entire being.

“What did you do to her?” Korekiyo says flatly, determined not to let his voice waver. His eyes lock onto Kira’s, and the salesman’s smile falters.

He eyes Korekiyo carefully, critically. He says, “She was a rude and selfish girl. Rude, but beautiful. She took such good care of her nails.”

Silence pools in the desecrated bedroom. Kiyo shows no signs of running away, nor screaming for help, and he doesn’t tell the salesman who his sister’s nail technician really was. Yoshikage Kira’s eyes remain glued to the boy, waiting.

He could reach out and touch the boy, if he wanted to. Kira could blow him to smithereens in the blink of an eye, if he so desired, and even if Korekiyo were to run away, Kira would be faster. Nobody outran him in the end— he prided himself on that. 

But there is something unbelievably strange about the boy that keeps Kira right where he is. Maybe… 

“Can you see it, Korekiyo-kun?” He asks the boy experimentally, his voice soft, quiet. Killer Queen looms over his shoulder, awaiting command. “Can you see it behind me?”

Korekiyo regards him fiercely. “What are you talking about?”

The salesman makes a small noise of acknowledgement. “Perhaps not, then.”

Perplexed and terrified, Korekiyo stares at Kira. The salesman hums. He opens his blazer, tucks the remains of Miyadera Shinguji safely in the pocket there, then turns his attention back to Korekiyo.

“You are a very strange boy, Korekiyo-kun,” says Kira. “Are you not afraid of me? Or are you simply putting on a very convincing act?”

At that, Korekiyo narrows his eyes, resisting the urge to bodily shudder. Struggling to control his nerves, he says, “I hate you.”

The killer smiles, bows his head. “I’m sorry, Korekiyo. Forgive me.”

He turns to go, lifting his thumb to activate the bomb he’d prepared: a handheld mirror just feet from his next victim. Then, like a knife through the thick tension in the air, the boy says—

“Take me with you.”

His thumb just an inch from the detonator, Kira freezes. He opens his eyes and stares, failing to mask his bewilderment. “What?”

“Take me with you.” Korekiyo’s eyes are cold and hard, boring into Kira’s despite the boy’s unimpressive size. “You killed my sister. I have no family left. You know that, don’t you? She must have told you. So, take me with you. I won’t tell anyone about what you did. And if you don’t take me, I’ll scream.”

Kira blinks, dumbfounded. The rush of power and relief that he usually derives from his homicidal habits is gone, as is his carefully put together mask of confidence and indifference, and gone so quickly, too. All stolen from him by the impressive, bewildering composure of this impossible boy before him.

What is it that gives this boy this sudden confidence? This certainty that he can escape or even outwit Kira? And why, Kira thinks, is this likely desperate, last-resort bluff from a child half his size… _working?_

Kira feels the weight of Killer Queen’s presence press down upon him, and reconsiders detonating the boy. Korekiyo Shinguji would suffer the same fate as his sister, in no time at all, and Kira would never be caught. He’s too slick. No one would ever know. He could do away with Korekiyo just as he has his other victims, and their witnesses. 

_This was the plan. Blow him up. Set it off. Blow him up!_

Korekiyo’s voice interrupts Kira’s inner mantra. “Well?”

Kira faces the boy, exasperated. Tension seethes between the two of them for an eternity.

Wordlessly, Yoshikage dismisses Killer Queen, and offers Korekiyo his hand.

Korekiyo’s fifteenth birthday — July 31st, 1995 — lands on a Wednesday. It’s still dark outside when his five o’clock alarm goes off. The Kira house is still and quiet, and as Korekiyo drags himself from his bed, fatigue slowing his movements, he is grateful to be a morning person, and to be up early enough to witness the sunrise on the veranda. 

Flipping on the light switch and opening his dresser drawer, Korekiyo dons his school uniform: a simple, dark ensemble with silver buttons stitched neatly into the crisp fabric. He hefts his bag, waiting for him by the door, over his shoulder, and heads to the kitchen. A few deceased members of the Kira clan peer at him from their portraits, hung on the walls of each long, winding hallway. Kira claims it’s not much, but his estate, the only thing left to him by his family, is both sizable and impressive.

Korekiyo reaches the kitchen and, as usual, there is no sign of Kira. On office days, the man’s job takes him out of Morioh, forcing him to leave the house long before Korekiyo is even awake in order to arrive on time. Korekiyo has a certain admiration and respect for Kira and how strictly he adheres to his daily routine, though he can no better see the appeal of a boring, trivial office job than he can see the dead.

And there are days where Korekiyo does _so_ long to see the dead.

Most days, Kira leaves the coffee pot out for Korekiyo in the mornings. Today is no different, save for the sticky note that is stuck to the side of the pot and a small, neatly wrapped box that sits just beside it. In familiar, neat kanji, the note reads:

_Happy birthday. I’ll be home early tonight. Expect pasta._

_Kira_

Korekiyo places the note back on the counter and begins unwrapping the box. He unties the lavender ribbon with care and places both it and the lid of the box back on the counter with the note. After a moment’s hesitation, he dares to look inside.

Inside the box is a necklace, with a princess-length cable chain showcasing a gaudy silver medallion. The metal gleams underneath the kitchen’s overhead lights as Korekiyo turns the locket over in his palm, running a finger over the precise, detailed engravings made in the surface of the medallion. The cable chain is thin and dainty, fragile in his hands. The clasp is pearl-and-diamond and very beautiful. The medallion’s silver is so well polished that Korekiyo can almost see his reflection in it.

Korekiyo puts the medallion on carefully and does the clasp, tucking it into the chest pocket of his bland school uniform. The color matches the buttons of his shirt perfectly, and his sister always said that silver hardware complements Korekiyo’s cool skin tone far more than gold. Korekiyo can’t help but feel touched at the gesture.

Touched, but far from ecstatic, because Korekiyo knows exactly how Kira managed to pick this up for him. 

Kira is far from the materialistic type. His home is certainly quite nice, but no nicer than many other homes in Morioh. His style is distinctly minimalistic and tidy, and anything he does purchase that holds some or even any material value is not for himself, nor for Korekiyo, but for one of his _companions._

With that thought in mind, Korekiyo doesn’t doubt that the locket around his neck now was not purchased, but rather looted off the corpse of some poor dead woman. He feels disgusted, but conflicted— should he throw it away, or accept the gift as he would any other? 

In the end, it stays around his neck, but not without some guilt. 

Korekiyo has never approved of Kira’s way of life, nor forgiven him for his crimes. Yoshikage Kira is heartless— evil, even. As much as Korekiyo may respect the salesman’s modest, humble day-to-day, it’s the reason that he is so often late to arrive home in the evenings that makes Korekiyo hate him, too. The root of his wickedness lies in his sick, twisted obsession, and the crimes he commits to indulge himself.

Despite that, Korekiyo knows Kira goes out of his way to keep his bloodier habits separate from both the rest of his life, and from Korekiyo. Whether that’s out of thoughtfulness for Kiyo or out of selfish secretiveness, Korekiyo doesn’t know, but he does appreciate the gesture nonetheless. Kira’s mind is twisted, but Kiyo likes to believe that he understands the beauty of humanity too, albeit in all the wrong ways. 

Kiyo insists to himself that he is _using_ Kira. He knows what Kira does in the evenings. Each day is a new opportunity for Korekiyo Shinguji to turn Yoshikage Kira in for his crimes, and Kiyo knows that that for Kira is nothing short of torture. But Korekiyo’s promise stands: he will never turn in Kira to the authorities, so long as he provides Kiyo with food, shelter, and clothing. 

Korekiyo does not know why Kira has never even so much as _tried_ to harm him — the man is obviously powerful in ways Kiyo cannot even begin to fathom — but he insists to himself that it does not matter.

Even if Kira has become something of a father figure over the years, Korekiyo will say nothing of it. 

Kira is acutely aware of his status as a “closed book” at his workplace.

For Kira’s coworkers, working such a tedious form-filling job leaves all the time in the world to engage in watercooler gossip (something Kira obviously never participates in; he has no time for idle chatter). Unfortunately for them, the office’s daily affairs are so mind-numbingly boring and uneventful that there are only so many things one can resort to gossiping about.

One of those things being, Kira.

Though Kira exchanges brief words with his colleagues from time to time, he’s earned himself a record streak of rejected invitations for post-work drinks or outings. It’s also common knowledge that he’s gone on one or two dates with a couple of female associates (who never showed up to work again, how strange), but nothing in particular ever became of it. Of course, there is plenty to remark about his _style—_ his peculiar wardrobe, his mannerisms, his way of speaking. To his colleagues, Kira is simply yet _distinctly_ enigmatic; it’s as though he’s a puzzle for them to solve.

Kira cannot deny his hatred of this attention enough. He despises the idea of being scrutinized, especially with so little shame on their part. Despite this, he refuses to make his colleagues aware of his discomfort — even a single lashing-out would be the ultimate faux pas — and does his best to operate as usual, and act oblivious under their watchful eyes. 

Thankfully, Kira’s cubicle is possibly the most discreet on their floor, being the final cubicle in a long row and in the far, far corner of the office. Even so, he keeps his cubicle very tidy, and there are absolutely no personal belongings on his desk or decorating the cubicle walls. Vague questions about Kira’s personal life typically go unanswered anyway— he is there to work, and acquire his wages, and that is all. 

At 17:00 one Wednesday evening, Kira shuts off his bulky white monitor (which continues to whir noisily even after he’s done so, the damn thing) and gathers up his bag to leave. Typically, his shift ends an hour later, a self-set curfew, but tonight he has more pressing matters to attend to— matters even more important than his usual nightly ventures. Still, Kira’s early leave is particularly out of the ordinary for him.

As it happens, one of his colleagues notices this, too. Nakamura from marketing calls Kira’s name as he’s on his way out the door. Figures.

“Leaving early, Kira-san?” says Nakamura. The curiosity in his voice is obvious, but what Kira hears more of is the suspicion. “What’s the occasion?”

Kira pauses, meets his coworker’s gaze with an easy smile. The rare show clearly catches Nakamura by surprise, which is something of a treat for Kira, and an opportunity to come up with an answer.

In the end, what he says isn’t too far off from the truth.

“It’s my son’s birthday today,” says Kira, easily. “I thought I ought to spend the evening with him. I’ll catch up tomorrow. _Ja ne,_ Nakamura-san.”

_”...Ja ne.”_

Kira steps into the office elevator. Nakamura watches him go.

“Strange guy,” remarks Kato from advertising, emerging from around the corner with a paper cup. “Wonder what his son’s like.”

It’s no Tonio Trussardi’s, but Kira’s interpretation of Italian food is a worthy tribute to the genuine article.

Korekiyo twirls his noodles around his fork and samples them, long legs stretched out beneath the dining room's traditional chabudai. As he begins eating, Kira shucks off his work shoes and sidles up to the zabuton across from him, pouring himself a glass of sake from a sleek, fashionable pitcher.

Lost in his thoughts and savoring his birthday dinner, Korekiyo fails to notice the salesman’s expectant expression until he clears his throat. Fumbling for his fork, Kiyo mutters _”oishii”_ around a mouthful of pasta. Yoshikage nods, satisfied, and picks up his own eating utensil.

They eat in silence, as always.

When he finishes, Korekiyo brings his hands together and utters a quiet “gochiosama”, then stands with his dishes. Kira stops him.

“Allow me,” he says, and Korekiyo tries not to startle as invisible hands gingerly take the dirty dishes from him, and carry them to the sink. Killer Queen turns on the faucet, and begins washing the tomato sauce off the plate.

“Thank you,” Kiyo says to the air. He feels stupid doing it, but Kira seems pleased. Figuring the niceties are over, the green-haired boy makes for the hallway, but again, the other man stops him.

When he turns, Kira is looking at him strangely. His glittering eyes are not so much like gemstones as they are stars, softer than usual but still bright and striking. His gaze traipses down from Kiyo’s face and lands on the medallion, still tucked into his uniform, which is beginning to feel more like a straitjacket now that the day is over.

“The locket. It suits you very much,” says Kira. “Seeing it on you, I don’t regret my decision to give it to you.”

The rare compliment catches Korekiyo by surprise, so much so that he foolishly allows the first thought that comes to mind to manifest on his tongue. He says, “I’m sure whoever owned it before me misses her necklace dearly.”

Kira sneers at the deflection and returns to his meal. The thoughtless insult doesn’t appear to make much of a dent. “I’m sure she could afford another. Now, it’s in the hands of someone who will truly appreciate it for what it is.”

Something about the way he says this makes Kiyo curious. He asks, “What’s that?”

The salesman hums, holding up a hand to pause the boy, and reaches into his suit— Korekiyo wisely averts his eyes to avoid any glimpses of Kira’s current _girlfriend_ that might inspire his dinner to take a drive uptown. What the salesman does reveal, though, intrigues him: a receipt.

“Such pieces are difficult to find. I’d intended on buying it myself from the jeweler’s, but…” Kira drums his fingers on the tabletop. “The woman in line before me was so _loud._ So obnoxious! The whole store might as well have been plugging their ears… but her nails were gorgeous. Just out of the salon, this woman was, Kiyo. The most _exquisite_ buff and shine, with this gorgeous—”

He stops. Korekiyo can feel himself turning green. Almost embarrassed, Kira clears his throat. 

“It’s a designer piece by a Mexican artist, a descendant of the Maya,” he finally explains, reading off the receipt on the table. “Her work, all inspired by the culture of her ancestors, has been making the rounds for its intricate designs.” He eyes Korekiyo. “I thought you would enjoy something so authentic, given your recent fascination with the Mayans.”

It’s a very thoughtful gift. Korekiyo’s spent weeks on end by now, poring over every book the Morioh library had to offer on the Maya. Their rich and fascinating culture even features in his thesis paper for World History, detailing their various philosophies and incredibly unique ideas about honor and sacrifice… 

Maybe Kiyo will consider retracting his earlier thoughts on the necklace. Even if it was obtained via a method of… dubious legality.

“It’s beautiful,” Kiyo utters, his voice a knife through the growing silence. “I’ll wear it every day.”

This seems to please Kira. He nods, and turns away from Korekiyo, a sign that he’s dismissed from the dining room. That’s how it is every night. Korekiyo doesn’t go until the other man says so. Kira is a very traditional sort of man, he’s noticed.

As he leaves, Kira calls after him one last time, “When you have the chance, you ought to try and wipe the fingerprints off.”

The acceptance letter to Tohoku University comes fast. After reading his submissions, they can’t wait to get him on campus. And neither can Kira, apparently, because all of a sudden he’s paying for everything: booking train tickets, for one thing, and purchasing for Korekiyo all of the commodities any other college student would kill to have on hand despite never having once brought up the idea of helping Korekiyo with his education. In middle and high school, Kiyo had always had tutors, but never had Kira actually bothered to help the boy himself. Yet now here he is, frantically paying off the tuition fees for him, eager to pack Kiyo away and send him off to college.

Korekiyo supposes it could be that Kira is simply relieved to finally be rid of him. The salesman has never shied away from being vocal about his frustration to be living with a teenage boy— no alone time, no peace, no freedom. It amuses Korekiyo in a cold, sardonic kind of way to imagine how Kira would fare with any _other_ teenager. 

When he’s at the dinner table, it makes him twist up his lips, narrowly biting back a laugh so that Kira doesn’t press questions. When he’s alone, he just grins. It feels good to smile every now and again.

Then again, after a while, those complaints stopped. Kiyo believes that by now, Kira has resigned himself to his situation. He’s started to tolerate Korekiyo’s presence, perhaps even to enjoy it. This hasty race to get Korekiyo out of the house and into S City is strange.

Something is wrong, and Korekiyo doesn’t know what.

Still, he bids goodbye to Kira all the same. His last three days in the house are awkward. More of their time is spent together, seemingly by accident though both of them know that isn’t the case. Even so, there’s very little talking, even if Kira constantly wears the look of a man with something on his mind. He wants to say something, but can’t, can’t open up to the person he forfeit his life of secrecy to. 

On the fourth and final day, Kiyo leaves at 9:30 in the morning to catch the 11:00 train. As his taxi honks its horn outside, he hauls his big black suitcase with sorry wheels down the corridor and to the front door, where Kira stands waiting for him, looking impossibly timid. Korekiyo stops in front of him, lifting the brim of his cap up to look him in the face.

“I’ll return in a few months for the holidays,” Kiyo informs the salesman. He adds, “If I’m welcome back.”

Kira nods once and looks away. Yes, he can come back. It’s not as though Kira will have gone anywhere. “Your bed will be made up for you.”

At that, Korekiyo allows himself a little smile. That’s it. Having known already that there would be no more sentimentality than that in their goodbyes, he shuffles past the salesman and steps out of the expensive house.

It’s the last time he’ll ever see Kira.

Despite having always been a very mature young man, Korekiyo has never been able to do much of anything about his exceptionally low pain tolerance. Which, in retrospect, is a right shame, because that sort of thing could come in handy for situations like this one. 

When Kiyo was younger, the other boys in his school’s locker room would snap towels at each other. While he never willingly participated, Kiyo vividly recalls being on the receiving end of one or two of those towels, and the sensation is a lot like the one he’s experiencing now. Sharp whipcracks running up and down his naked torso, leaving burning red marks in their wake. It’s awful.

He’s not at all fluent in the language his assailants speak, and he curses himself for this because language-learning is among his strong suits and he could have done very well for himself by reading on the plane ride. He uses what little he does know, however, to string together short, pleading phrases, but his accent is off and his pronunciation is all wrong and they just think he wants more so, against his better judgement, he starts kicking and thrashing, hoping somehow he can slide out of the restraints they’ve got him in. They’ve got him tied up with ragged, frayed rope, not at all like the smooth, comfortable shibari rope he’s been introduced to recently, and it scratches his skin up and makes the marks and bruises sting, but maybe if he sweats enough he can— 

Korekiyo tastes dirt and blood as he hits the ground, having successfully heaved himself off that sacrificial slab they’d laid him on. His vision is muddled and there’s dust in his eyes but he kicks and writhes some more, hopelessly believing he can create some distance if he does it hard enough. The rope squeezes tighter at his resistance, though, and before he can address _that_ problem, there are hands on his legs, dragging him back through the mud and the grass. He spits up blood, begging “please stop” but they can’t understand and then the whipping starts again and _oh god why won’t they stop?_

It’s when darkness is just starting to crawl in from the edges of his vision that it finally stops. Kiyo hears a guttural shriek in his ear and recoils, crying out at the deafening sound. But then the hands holding him down lift off his body, and when he blinks away the tears and the grime he sees one of his assailants staring in bug-eyed horror at something out of view. He jerks his body back and forth until he can see, and when he does, he’s filled with visceral disgust.

Another of the natives he’s stumbled across entirely by accident lies facedown in the dirt. His skin is waxy and smooth and looks almost grey, and his fingernails are long and grotesque. The hair is shedding, too, revealing the shriveled skull. The bones show through the skin, stretching it, molding it. A man alive just moments ago somehow looks three months dead.

 _Taxidermy._ That’s the first word that comes to mind, and Korekiyo wants to vomit but his attackers are way ahead of him. They’re moving away from Korekiyo like he has the plague, terror dawning slowly on their faces. And then they run, far away, leaving Kiyo tied up on his own in a village field, bruised, battered, and befuddled.

Exhausted, he succumbs to sleep involuntarily, and dreams in color.

Kiyo isn’t sure what exactly to call his new companion. Not in terms of its namesake— _it_ came up with that, demanding he call it “T.H.”, short for “Telepathic Humans.” But in terms of title… well, that would require Kiyo even knowing what it is. And he doesn’t. At all.

Frankly, he lives in fear of it for the first couple of weeks as he rests up at a hotel, recovering from his injuries and waiting for the next flight to S City. It never goes away, instead lurking in the corners of his hotel room, watching him with golden, downturned eyes. Sometimes it talks to him, in short, curt sentences, but Kiyo always shuts it down, shouting at it to stop and leave him alone. It never does, though, and consequently Korekiyo has to wonder if it _can._

But then he remembers Kira’s mysterious invisible housemate, the thing he so cryptically referred to as “Killer Queen.” It, too, had mysterious abilities not even Kira could explain, abilities he was granted under exacting circumstances. 

Korekiyo has never been able to see Killer Queen. If he hadn’t witnessed what it had done to his sister, he would be more inclined to dismiss Kira as crazy. But now he has an invisible friend of his own— or, at least, it seems that way. T.H. follows him around the hotel, and none of the other tenants seem to even be aware that it’s there. It’s strange, almost like having an accomplice to your crimes.

He becomes more and more sure, over the course of his stay at the hotel, that Telepathic Humans is responsible for the fate of the native he saw decaying at an unnatural rate. It seems to be the only obvious answer. Perhaps Kiyo manifested it under stress just as Kira had, as a sort of last resort to keep himself alive and out of harm’s way.

There’s no way to be certain yet, but as the holidays get closer and he slowly adjusts to his new friend’s presence, Korekiyo knows he’s going to have to speak with Kira about this. 

He can’t wait to be home.

**Author's Note:**

> that's all folks. the meat and potatoes of diamond is unbreakable started basically immediately after kiyo left for school (1999) and we all know how that ended so.... yeah you can guess what he came home to
> 
> thanks for reading!! i hope you enjoyed... feedback is always appreciated


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